In the Membership feature, there is an option to send emails to all or selected Members on the Bridgewebs club Membership database (Bulk Email).

In theory sending "Bulk Emails" is simply sending one email with a number of cc's. However, there are a number of rules, regulations and best practices when sending Bulk Email from an automated system. Therefore, Bridgewebs creates the "Bulk Emails" and forwards to a third party specialist Email service which:

• gives Performance Improvements
• avoids emails being flagged as spam
• avoids "Bridgewebs" being blacklisted
• provides better bounce email detection
• provides an unsubscribe option
• provides better email analysis for Bridgewebs
• detects whether an email has been read.  A trick of the trade is to insert an image (the Bridgewebs Icon) in the email and then the email service can track whether an email has been opened, thus identifying email addresses in use.

To send "Bulk Email"

Go to "Membership" - "Email Members" and follow the steps

1. Selection

Adjust the criteria as necessary, then see 6 below.

• Name - enter part of a name to send to shorten the list to just particular members
• Email Groups - Tick applicable groups, ticking more than one will include a member with any one of those ticked. See below
  • If you see a message "Email Groups Not Set" it simply means that you haven't any members with an Email Group.
• Status - Choose All, Members or Visitors
• Club Status - choose if used.
• Played - If you just want to send an email to participants in a certain event.

2. Subject

This is what the recipient will see in the subject and will default to the club name, change as necessary

3. Reply To

All Bulk Emails sent automatically , such as this feature, HAVE TO BE ¶¶  sent "from" an email address assigned to the Originator of the emails. This currently defaults to members@bridgewebsemail.com. If a member replies to this email it will end up in a black hole.

Therefore, a line is inserted "Please reply to xxx@example.com" at the top of the email with a link to an email address, this is set to whatever you enter in the "Reply To" field.

You can use an alternative email to members@bridgewebsemail.com. However, this is not available through Web Admin and has to be set up by Bridgewebs on request, please email info@bridgewebs.com.

Note ¶¶.  Sending an email with a "from" or "reply-to" address", especially a free mail such as yahoo or hotmail, which doesn't have a domain part the same as the originator of the email is one of the biggest reasons for emails being flagged as Spam and not reaching the intended recipient. It may also result in the "Originator", i.e.. Bridgewebs.com being blacklisted.

4. Greeting

You can choose whether to personalize your Newsletter. Hi or Dear and to full name or firstname or choose n§one..

5. Message

Enter the message that the recipient will see. 
This is boxed and preceded with a "Hi Member Name"
An "Unsubscribe" link is added as a footer.

6. Web Link

Normally this can be left as default and will provide a link from the email direct to the web site.

You can alternatively choose another page in the web site relevant to the message.

Tip If you want to circularize a PDF document,

• Upload the Document to the Bridgewebs library
• Then this will appear in the Web Link Dropdown
• Choose this

This is a much more efficient method than sending a large document via email to each member.

7. Selected

Having entered the selection, you can fine-tune the list further by Ticking/Unticking as necessary.

Email Groups

If you want to send regularly to a subset of the Members, you can assign email groups to each member.

The Email Groups are set up in Membership Options, a single character A-Z, 1-9 followed by =Title e.g.

C=Committee;S=Scorer;D=Director;1=Monday;2=Tuesday;3=Wednesday;4=Thursday;5=Friday

Only single characters A-Z,0-9. To avoid confusion, uppercase only.

Then for each Member, tick the appropriate Email Group

You can use the Import/Export and the codes are combined in one field, thus someone with SC is a Scorer and Committee Member.

Templates/Drafts

You can Open/Save Templates and Drafts.

• Default Template - Used when you first open the [Email Members] Tab
• Templates - Can be set and reused as a draft
• Drafts - Deleted once the Email is sent.

View Log:

The Bulk Email feature a Bridgewebs wide service. Bulk emails will not be sent to Members who have "unsubscribed", "bounced", or marked as "junk"

If someone "Unsubscribes" an email from one club, they will not receive an email from any club. To resubscribe an email, see http://www.bridgewebs.com/guide/bulk_email_log.html

If "Bounced" emails are showing you will need to check that the email is spelt correctly and is currently valid for the Member. Please then update the Membership database.